Manikins as an Idealized Body Form

I find it interesting how idealized store manikins are becoming. What I mean by this is that the body shape of them does not match their purpose as they are immediately covered up with clothes; the detail is simply not necessary. That this idealization of the manikin is a relation of the view of that we as people need to become idealized ourselves: that it is not ok just to be normal that all of us imagine the goal of perfection.

I would like to say this idealization of manikins is the industry attempt to get us to think if we buy the same clothing the manikin has then we too will have a perfect body, but the manikins’ body is usually covered-up so I do not think this is the case. However, I think the message idealization has crept into all of us, including those that design manikins. Perhaps it is as some may claim: that the design of manikins is to better show-off the clothes to fit the human figure. I disregard this on the grounds that as the last time I checked most people do not have perfect bodies (in fact, it more common, from what I have seen, that people have love-handles than six-packs abs).

This leaves me with the hypothesis that the bodies of manikins have result from our obsession of the idealization of the human body. However, I am not willing to totally disregard the hypothesis that this is the industry attempt to try to convince us that by buying products we can achieve idealized bodies; as I have to admit I only wish my pants fit and look as well as I have seen other pants on manikins (and I would be extremely happy if I woke-up and found that I lost my love-handles as the manikins seem to have).